She clamped her hands together. They heard how the breath rasped in her. She said at last, “I’m sorry,” and sat back down.

Magnus Ryerson looked up. And his eyes were not old. He let the surf snarl on the rocks of his home for a while. And then he answered her: “For that is our doom and our pride.”

“What?” She started. “Oh. In English. Terangi, he means—” She said it in Interhuman.

Maclaren sat quite still.

Ryerson opened his book. “They have forgotten Kipling now,” he said. “One day they will remember. For no people live long, who offer their young men naught but fatness and security. Tamara, lass, let your son hear this one day. It is his song too, he is human.”

The words were unknown to Maclaren, but he listened and thought he understood. 

When Ryerson had finished, Maclaren stood up, folded his hands and bowed. “Sensei,” he said, “give me your blessing.”

“What?” The other man leaned back into shadows, and now he was again entirely old. You could scarcely hear him under the waves outside. “You’ve naught to thank me for, lad.”

“No, you gave me much,” said Maclaren. “You have told me why men go, and it isn’t for nothing. It is because they are men.”